Ang Lee: The Director, The Introvert

Ang Lee recently won his second Academy Award as best director for “Life of Pi” (his first was for “Brokeback Mountain”).

In an article on leadership, Susan Cain gives a number of examples of “effective Asian-American leaders” including Lee, and others: “novelist Chang Rae-Lee; fashion designer Vera Wang; New York Times literary critic Michiko Kakutani…the list goes on and on.”

One of the stars of “Life of Pi,” Adil Hussain, described how the Taiwanese filmmaker works.

He commented that Ang Lee is “so sensitive and the way he directs you is so silent. He’d whisper into your ear what he has to say.

“He’d walk all the way from the den where he would sit… watching the shoot, to where you were shooting, if he had something to tell you. He wouldn’t just yell at his assistant asking him to convey the message; he’d always do so personally.”

Hussain added, “His language isn’t just verbal though, it’s some sort of energy transmission. And that makes you perform. That’s why a first-time actor like Suraj (who played the protagonist Pi Molitor Patel) could give this sort of an amazing performance. It cannot be solely through intellectual coaching.”

Another article quotes Cain on the “extrovert ideal” – “the cultural phenomenon where in our schools, workplaces and religious institutions, we revere people who are bold, entertaining, alpha and gregarious, and appreciate far less a different constellation of traits – the serious, reflective, cerebral characteristics associated with introversion.”

But she also points out that these traits are greatly admired in some countries, such as China, where shy and sensitive children are popular at school.

Susan Cain is author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking [an Amazon top Best Seller in Psychology of Creativity & Genius].

Dr. Elaine Aron comments that Cain’s book “is actually more about HSPs (highly sensitive people) than social introverts” and “Her discussion of ‘introversion’ throughout is almost identical to what has become the standard definition of high sensitivity.”